


come quick, i am losing feeling

by silverhedges



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood Friends, Dreamsharing, Gen, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5945710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhedges/pseuds/silverhedges
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren acts like he’s a stranger to Poe, like Ben Organa was never friends with him during their childhood. When their dreams begin to merge, Poe finds out it isn’t an act.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come quick, i am losing feeling

**Author's Note:**

> warning: slurs, description of blood, claustrophobia, fire, cursing

He dreams of a forest. It’s not what he usually dreams of. Poe’s dreams are much like his waking hours, full of the sky and the wind and flying. The endlessness he feels when up in the air, like nothing can go wrong, like this moment is going to last forever. Perhaps it might be boring that he’s so fixated on his job, but Poe prefers to call it having his head screwed in the right place.

After all, living a life knowing exactly what you want and how to get it is far, far easier than spending your entire life in indecision.

The forest is green and leafy and the sticks break underneath his feet. The sun shines through the openings, creating that weird patterning of light and shadow on the forest floor. It’s the kind of normal thing he would point out to Finn and Rey, who would then spend like twenty minutes just staring and marvelling. It’s alright; he just enjoys their reactions. That’s what he would want out of it.

Still, they’re not here and this ain’t exactly Poe’s thing. So he just wanders forth. Trees. Trees. More trees. Occasional bush in the way or tree trunk he has to manoeuvre around. It’s strange, just walking in a forest for so long – he can’t quite remember the last time he actually did something like this. A long time ago. He feels unsteady with his feet anchored to the earth like this, like a sailor landsick after a long voyage at sea.

Perhaps he should bring Finn (and Rey, as well, he supposes) to a forest. When Finn wakes up. Then again, she said they’d met… Kylo Ren in a winter forest so perhaps the reminder of forests won’t bring back any good memories for them. It’s a shame. It’s a real damn shame.

Where are the birds? The animals? Aren’t there like, little skunks or something that scuttle around forests?

Around him as he walks further in, the forest trees grow larger, older, leaves intertwining to form a dark canopy that blocks out the sun. Poe only realises this when his skin grows chill from the shade. His instincts are saying _bad idea, soldier_ , but there is never any place to go but forward. The roots of trees break through the skin of the forest floor and disrupt the path. He steps carefully around them, studying the ground like a city slicker going up the mountains.

The trees grow darker, crowding him in, but Poe is pretty calm. Look, a forest can only hurt you with like, cliché imagery. He’s thirty-two, an experienced pilot, been captured by the enemy plenty of time and survived; he’s not going to get scared by a forest.

The forest suddenly breaks up, opening up, and Poe stumbles over a root he didn’t notice into a clearing. When he looks up, okay, that’s a little scary. Just a little bit, because as soon as the shock is over his fear is gone – although shouldn’t he be scared?

He would recognise the dark figure of Kylo Ren anywhere, even sitting down on a tree trunk in the middle of a clearing. Except it’s not exactly Kylo Ren, because the mask is missing and Poe’s breath catches as he takes in the face he hasn’t seen for half a lifetime, a face he shouldn’t recognise. You can’t wear masks in dreams.

The dark figure looks up at him. In this dream his hair is black, although Poe knows his hair is a light brown, although Poe has never seen him like this. How can you dream of something you’ve never seen? Ben – no, no, Kylo Ren, opens his mouth and says, ---Who are you?

Poe stares back, bewildered. ---But you _know_ who I am.

Kylo Ren scowls the same scowl he saw on the face of his thirteen year old friend. ---No, he snaps. ---I don’t.

Then the dream is over, just like that.

…

Poe wakes up the next morning and doesn’t have much time to think over his dream. He has a busy life, after all, and much more to do than dwell on long-gone friends. It’s a little weird to even dream of him; he dreamed of Ben the weeks after he left and Poe had nightmares the weeks after he heard what he had done. But life had gone on and Poe had moved on. They both had moved on.

It gnaws at him after the day is done, when he’s standing in the shower and has some time to himself. How long-limbed Kylo Ren is, the features of his face settled into adulthood, eyes with all the hooded weariness of a man and not a child. Would he be taller than Poe, if he was ever in a position to compare their heights?

And that’s just weird, cause the last time Poe ever saw Ben Organa, he had been thirteen and scared and so small when the far taller Poe had hugged him. Like, really. Poe had been closer to seventeen than sixteen at that time of the year, growth spurt finished, and Ben had felt like he weighed nothing at all. Like if Poe didn’t hug him hard enough, he’d just disappear, waft away into the wind and never be seen again.

He hadn’t known what the General was thinking at the time, sending her son away to be trained as a Jedi. Sure, it was obvious at the time he needed a change in something. But if it was up to Poe he would put Ben somewhere solid, like enrolled in a pilot academy or something. But it wasn’t and well, Poe isn’t a man to linger on regrets.

Why do so, when he’s got such a great future ahead of him?

…

( _I’m going to be the best freaking pilot in the whole galaxy,_ Poe confided when he was nine years old, leaning close with shining eyes and shinier dreams. Nine and gangly and innocent in the way of not knowing there’s battles you can’t win in this world. _The best of them all. I don’t care what anyone says._

 _That’s good,_ replied Ben, eyes big under his shock of brown hair. And if Ben was ever innocent, he was innocent in the way of a driver not knowing his road ends in a cliff. _Um, that’s great. Does someone give you an official title or something to get that?_

Poe laughed, jostled the six year old beside him, play physicality. _No, you just do it! So what are you aiming for?_

Ben looked at him with startled eyes, fingers trailing circles in the dust. _Um. I don’t know. Something, I guess?_

Poe shook his head in mock disapproval. _C’mon. You gotta have something you want to do with your life_.)

…

It happens again.

It’s dark and Poe stumbles forward at first, cursing through the pain of stubbing his toes. He fumbles around, hands touching rough, cold stone. He manages to balance himself upright. He can’t see, not at all but when he tries to walk forward he realises there is a steep step in front of him. He climbs the first one, raising his feet higher than what he’s used to and then another and another.

His fingers trace along the wall, feeling his way without sight and eventually Poe realises that he is climbing a spiral staircase. He recalls long-gone history lessons, of castles ruined by time and death. Poe can’t breathe quite right, throat tight. He doesn’t like the feeling of being enclosed on both sides, trapped in this night. He was made for the sky. This is a cage made of shadows and Poe feels like a bird flying in circles.

The first glimpse of light turning the dark to grey is absolutely beautiful.

Poe hurries forward to it, hands scraping the stone. An opening in the stone, like a slice in the edge of the world. He breathes in the fresh air like he’s _dying_ and it’s like he’s suddenly woke up after a long daze. Poe doesn’t like this dream.

He considers any escape through the window, but when he hoists himself up and peers out, there’s just mist beyond the stone. _If you die in a dream, you die in real life…_ and well, Poe has always been one to believe in what he can’t prove. Why else would he have such faith in his tiny Resistance? He waits there, for a long time, just waiting and standing, but nothing ever happens.

Eventually he comes to a realisation that makes his heart sink like a plane down to the ground: he’s gonna have to go on.

So he does. Cause when Poe knows he has to do something, even though it sucks like hell, he does it. He’s been doing this for a long time now and he knows how to go on even when he doesn’t want to. The first part is leaving the window, the fresh air and the sunlight, and climbing on into the dark. It hurts like nothing else, but it’s easier once he goes on.

After what feels like an eternity in the dark, he sees another window. He walks past it. Then the dark, then another window. Dark, window, dark, window, dark window – Poe is measuring time by long he feels like he’s gone without seeing a window now.

Then Poe reaches one window, and there he is, sitting on the stone windowsill like he has every right to.

He turns, and the red slash across his face is like learning the meaning of the word vibrant again. Kylo Ren, and Poe is staring, because somehow he had missed the scar last time, on the face he shouldn’t know. His eyes, too – so open, giving away everything. Kylo Ren is a man who permanently looks like he’s on the verge of tears, and honestly all Poe can think of is Ben Organa with his shitty poker face and the way he always looked so upset when Poe teased him.

(Poe needs to _not_ think of that. Kylo Ren is a man who looks nothing like his actions say and the expectations his face give are tricks. It’s like they used to say back in school, _it’s always the quiet ones_. Poe needs to not think and so he doesn’t any longer, because Ben Organa is dead.)

The scar twitches on his face as Kylo Ren frowns, moving like a living line on his face. He says nothing for one moment and Poe almost opens his mouth to speak first when Kylo Ren beats him to it, ---You’re the Resistance pilot.

He speaks without speaking here, somehow. It is a dream, after all. But his voice is deep and fraught without his mask. Poe is only noticing it now, cataloguing the differences between this memory and this dreamy reality.

\---Yes, Poe tells him, ---No one better at flying than me, mate.

\---Should say so. You did escape our ship. Kylo Ren tilts his head, dark curls falling in place. ---Why are you here?

\---Why am _I_ here? Poe can’t believe this guy. (These dreams of Kylo Ren are so very lucid.) ---This is _my_ dream. Why are _you_ here, huh?

\---No, it’s _my_ dream. Kylo Ren has the same expression that Poe dubbed ‘Ben’s argument face’ so many years ago. It’s easier to think of him as a monster with the mask on.

Why’s it happening to him? Poe has had and has many friends. Ben Organa was one among many. He’s had friends he’s lost, friends he’s drifted away from. Poe has reason upon reason to hate Kylo Ren – hell, he’s hated for less! Yet he’s having these weird dreams about him; dreams haunted by a remnant of a living ghost. Poe can’t help but laugh at how absurd this is.

\---I must be imagining what you look like, y’know. Poe shakes his head. ---You look nothing like you did sixteen years ago.

The grey glow of the mist darkens to a shade not far off black, the air heavy like a storm coming. In the sudden gloom the whites of Kylo’s eyes stand out against his brown-black eyes, those eyes like the absence of all light. ---I don’t know you, Kylo says, and his voice is cold in the way a voice is when you wave to a stranger on accident. ---I’d never met you before Jakku.

\---What the hell are you talking about? There’s a shock of outrage running hot in Poe’s blood at this denial. ---I’ve known you almost all my life!

\---No, you haven’t! The man snarls, face twisted into something terrible, and Poe takes an involuntary step back. The hatred on this face is unrecognisable – but then Poe remembers himself. He knows better than to doubt his own memory. Poe takes a step forward, even as Kylo Ren looms over him and says with a hiss, ---I would remember you if I _had_!

\---If we’ve never met before Jakku, Poe says quietly, eyes flicking up to Kylo’s, ---then why are you so angry over this?

Kylo Ren stares down at him. Then there is some screech through the fabric of the dream, a shake, a ripple in the pool. It says, goawaygoawayGOAWAYGOAWAY _GOAWAY_

\-- and Poe wakes up, jolted. It takes him a few minutes for his heart to stop racing, to realise he’s in-between the sheets instead of beside cool stone. It was just a dream, he says to himself, voice echoing in his own mind. Just a dream.

…

Rey stirs the yogurt with a spoon. “It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard of,” she says, musing. “Although you have to remember that I haven’t actually _started_ training yet.”

Poe keeps his eyes on the yoghurt, Rey’s hands and the light dancing on the silver of the spoon. It’s easier than looking into Rey’s eyes. The canteen is loud around them, rebels chattering and laughing. Over the time they’ve waited for Finn to wake up, it’s become their unofficial meeting place to talk.

“I just don’t know,” he mutters, not eating his own yoghurt. (Poe doesn’t actually _like_ yoghurt.) “These dreams seem so _real_ , Rey. Nothing like it happening to you, no?”

“No,” she says thoughtfully. He can hear the spoon clinking against her teeth. “But then again, I’m a – Leia called it a Force-user. Force-sensitive? Anyway, he didn’t really _get_ inside my head. I fought him off. I saw inside _his_ , for a moment.”

“I don’t have any sort of defence,” Poe admits, slightly uncomfortable.

“No,” Rey agrees, and Poe’s eyes flick up to her intent brown eyes, looking at him. He looks back down at his off-white yoghurt.

(Here’s something that Poe doesn’t really have any sort of explanation or reason for. He’s a pretty friendly guy. He’d say so himself and his mates would agree. He gets along with all sorts of people. But there’s something about Rey that… sets him on edge. Raises the hair on the back of his neck.

He has Finn in common with her, the sweet, loving man they’re both waiting on. Poe misses him like an ache every time he visits the hospital wing and Finn still hasn’t woken. He only knew him for such a short amount of time and yet it’s like something’s missing in his life.

Something missing between the two of them sitting here in this canteen. Finn would be their glue, the heart of this link between them. If he was awake, sitting here, Poe would feel so, so much better.

Deep down Poe knows the truth; he’s scared of Rey.)

“It _could_ be,” Rey starts, going off on some train of thought, “that when he looked inside your head, there was some sort of… bond created between you, or something. That resulted in some sort of dreamsharing. He didn’t really strike me as someone who knew what he was doing with the Force.”

Pause. Neither of them speak. “So you mean,” Poe speaks, just to break the silence, “That the Kylo Ren I’ve been dreaming of – I’ve been talking to the real Kylo Ren?” It’s an uncomfortable truth, one he didn’t want to voice.

“Yes,” Rey says, not a touch of apology in her voice. To Poe it sounds like a condemning.

…

This time, it’s a setting Poe likes more. The cockpit of an X-Wing, the endless sky around them. But at the same time everything is wrong because when Poe is flying, there is nothing for him but flying. Muscle memory kicking in, the endless concentration. When Poe flies he is one with the plane and there is nothing else that matters in the entire universe. When he’s aware that he’s flying, that he’s in a plane – that’s how he knows something is wrong.

Poe is sitting in the pilot seat, but his hands quickly grow listless on the console. There’s no need for him to actually fly the plane. This is a mockery, a plane suspended in the sky, an image of what Poe would want to see. He stares out of the window. The sky is unmoving outside, clouds frozen against the blue backdrop.

Someone looms up behind him.

Poe ain’t a Force user but the prickle on the back of his neck gives the game away. He shoots up out of the seat, turning to throw his back against the wall. You know – he isn’t surprised to see Kylo Ren again, even if his height does make Poe’s breath catch in his throat.

Even through all he’s suffered, all everyone has suffered, Poe still – knowing he’s talking to the real Kylo Ren, the real Ben – Poe still has some hope for him. Perhaps it’s just that Poe believes General Organa when she said there is still good in the man before him. He could never doubt her words.

It’s hard to have hope, looking up at him. ---You’re real, snarls Kylo Ren, vicious like a dog. ---You’re real and you’re _inside my head_.

\---Inside my head? Poe offers a half-hearted snarky grin. ---How do you you’re not inside mine?

\---I don’t want you here! Kylo’s petulance makes the smile slip from Poe’s face. ---You’re just some Resistance pilot! I don’t _know_ you!

\---You _do_! Poe argues back, feeling like he’s going round in circles. That’s the thing about Ben that Poe forgot about. It was always running in circles and dead ends with him. ---You do know me, I’ll prove it to you. Why do I even have to prove it to you? How can you _deny_ all this?

Kylo Ren just looks back down at him, eyes dark, purple rings beneath them like bruises.

\---We were kids together, Poe says quietly. ---You were shorter than me and thin like a rake even though you ate everything on your plate. You pouted so much but the General could always get you to listen. We played Jedi and Sith together and you were always the Jedi.

It’s hard to say it. It’s hard opening his mouth and trying to _speak_ to Kylo Ren. He can snark, he can make snide comments, he can make this man angry. He’s trying, he’s trying – but Poe is beginning to realise he’s just not a man built for forgiveness. He wasn’t meant for this to happen to him. Pick Rey, pick Luke, pick Leia – not him.

Poe shakes his head. ---Give me a _sign_ here, mate. You gotta give me a sign. There’s got to be _something_ of regret in you. Don’t tell me you stand there and don’t care.

\---I won’t, Kylo Ren bites out, his voice hard (and Poe has heard that hardness before in the General’s angry voice). ---Oh, I won’t say I don’t care. I do care. I fucking _hate_ you and everything you stand for. You’re with the Resistance!

Ice freezes Poe’s blood, cold and harsh. There’s the double-edged sword of still having hope; you still have a way to be hurt. For a moment he’s at a loss at how to respond, until instinct takes over and he speaks in a tone like the ice in his veins, ---Oh, really? Well, don’t worry, cause we don’t. The Resistance is going to destroy you, Kylo Ren. Just like you destroyed Luke!

\---Don’t talk to me of _Luke._ You know _nothing_ about Luke _._ Kylo Ren’s voice is dark and harsh.

\---Then what am I supposed to say to you? Just pretend nothing happened? Is that what you want?

\---I want you to go away and leave me _alone_! Kylo Ren howls. ---Just go _die_!

And just like that, all of Poe’s hope disappears. There’s lines that have been crossed again and again and things that people you have hope for should never say to you. Poe has never been a troubled soul, never made many serious mistakes in relationships. _You always know what to do, Poe_ , his friends would say to him, smiling.

Poe knows what to do. This man is a murderer, not his friend. Poe knows how to cut his losses and run; Poe knows when to give up. Giving up will keep you sane. Giving up will keep you alive and happy. So he turns away in this dream and looks out at the light of the sky.

\---Goodbye, Kylo, he says, and the dream fades away.

…

He goes to see the General. Their base is always moving, the price of being a Resistance with no longer even having a Republic to support them. He does worry about that; everyone worries. But he doesn’t want to leave and run away. If they are all going to die by the hand of the First Order, Poe will be there until the last.

“I understand you want to see me, Dameron,” the General says drily, frowning down at a datapad. She doesn’t look up at him but he knows she doesn’t need to. She has the Force, after all.

(When he was a little kid, there was a joke that Senator Organa could see what you were doing behind her back using the Force. Poe knows objectively that’s probably untrue, considering Leia Organa remains untrained in the Force; but on the other hand, he’s not going to flip her off behind her back for all the money on Hosnian Prime.)

“I’ve been having dreams, ma’am,” Poe cuts straight to the point, no-bullshit. “Dreams which I’m sharing with someone else, communicating with them. They are –“ and he hesitates, because this is the difficult part.

“They are _who_?” The General looks up, brown eyes expecting an answer. Both of Kylo Ren’s parents have brown eyes, but he inherited Leia’s in the end. Hers are far darker than Han Solo's ever were. 

“Kylo Ren.”

She sets down the datapad, leans back in her chair. “Ah.” A pause. “Explain more, Dameron.”

“I didn’t think they were real at first,” he says, rushing out like a confession. (He’s thirty-two, but no life experience counts for anything in front of the General.) He can’t quite look at her, so he glances around the bare, shift make office. “I thought it was an actual dream. But he – he doesn’t know who I am. And he knows things I don’t know.” Lull. “Rey says it might be because of what happened when I was held captive.”

A sigh brings his attention back to the General. She has her eyes closed for a moment. When she opens them, she looks older than he’s ever thought of her. More tired. She sighs again, a long deep movement of her chest.

“I’m going to tell you something, Dameron,” she says quietly. “There’s a very good reason I’ve never trained in the Force. Firstly, because I never wanted to, and secondly, because I knew that if I did, I would fall to the Dark side. I’m too much like my father.”

Instinct makes him almost yell out, _no, not you, never you_ , but experience keeps him silent and waiting for her to speak again. But wasn’t her father Anakin Skywalker, the hero of the Clone Wars? She’s never spoken about him in his knowledge before. Poe has a feeling that she will not elaborate.

The General rolls her head back, looking up at the ceiling. “Us Skywalkers, we just don’t know when to quit. When to give up. Driven by passion, Kenobi once told me – hah. I thought I was different, once, when I was young. I thought Luke was the nice one and I was the angry one. But I understand now, what he meant, about our father.” She pauses, eyes distant.

Poe isn’t quite following her anymore. She isn’t really talking to him anymore, but someone else.

Her gaze snaps back to him. Poe straightens up unconsciously. “The point is, Dameron,” and her voice is sharper, “that you should let go of whatever need you feel to fix this. Ben is a Skywalker as well as an Organa and it’s up to Skywalkers to fix this mess he’s made of himself.”

Then she drifts off again from him. “Or a Kenobi,” she adds, with the reward of a small quirked smile. “That’s what my real father, Bail, said to me. Long time ago, now. He said, where there’s Skywalker, there’s always Kenobi never far behind.” She snorts. “Or maybe it was the other way around.”

It’s standing here that Poe once more realises the difference between those with the Force and those without. The General knows things he will never know, sees things he cannot possibly imagine. It’s alienating to say the least. But it’s better, when she’s looking at him and actually talking to him.

“There’s a reason you’re here, Dameron,” she tells him, eyes as hard and as certain as entropy, “like there was a reason Han was here. All we have to do is trust in the will of the Force. This thing you have with Ben – it’ll sort it itself out, sooner or later.”

Poe nods his head. But it isn’t the Force he’s trusting in. It’s the General.

  
…

A forest, again.

Except it’s different, this time. A summer forest, with the young thin-trunked trees far apart. Light flows down, tall green grass brushing Poe’s knees. There are spots of colour here and there, yellow and red and purple, bunches of flowers growing bright. It’s too bad he can’t really enjoy it.

He’s too aware right now of the fact that this is a dream. He’s waiting for the catch out, for the dark figure to spring out of the shadows. Ruin his day, why don’t you. Poe turns, wandering, waiting. Eventually he comes out into a meadow of green grass and flowers, which then stretches out into wide fields of sun-blessed corn. Far away in the distance there is a temple. Poe turns back, looking at the forest.

Where is he? Where is Kylo Ren?

There’s a shiver across his neck like a cold breath. That’s the only warning he gets before someone speaks right into his ear, like being suddenly drenched in icy water. ---kylo ren will never come here again.

\---What? Poe cries out loud, spinning around. There is no one. He turns and keeps turning, but there is no one.

\---you are a dead man, poe dameron. a memory of a boy.

\---I’m not dead, if you haven’t noticed. I’m very much alive.

\---kylo ren is not your friend. ben solo was, but he is dead.

Poe considers that Kylo Ren might now have taken to speaking in third person. Somehow, despite all of Kylo Ren’s theatrics, despite the weirdness of these dreams, despite the melodrama that runs in Skywalkers, he finds it unlikely. ---Who _are_ you?

\---supreme leader snoke, the one, the only. the man who will rule this galaxy.

More like an annoying man, Poe thinks to himself, but his stomach is twisting itself into knots. He has never, ever met Snoke. Never come near to him at all. If he can… sneak into the dreams of someone he’s never met, what else can he do? What else has Snoke _done_?

\---What do you _want_ from me? I’m just a pilot.

\---just a pilot, who was rescued by the traitor. just a pilot who once knew ben solo.

\---And what does that count for anything? Poe cries out in that strange not-speaking voice, frustrated. ---If my friend is gone, it’s too _late_ for him! I’m not responsible for him!

\---but you want to know why he doesn’t remember you.

Poe stills.

\---don’t you?

Poe concentrates on the forest before him, the green and gold. The faraway trees begin to blur together as he stares out. Concentrate, Dameron, concentrate. (It sounds like the General.) His hands are shaking. ---Yes, he says quietly. ---Tell me.

\---ben solo didn’t want to remember you, Snoke whispers, poison dripdripdripping in Poe’s ears, --- _you_ , specifically. Something clenches in Poe’s chest and he thinks to himself; bad idea, Dameron.

\---in fact, Snoke continues, voice like ugly silk, ---he asked me to take away all memory of you. strip it from his mind so he could be free. he begged me to.

Something inside Poe jolts. Pieces click into place and others out of place. He wants to cry out _no_ , wants to deny it, wants to say _he would never do that_ and yet he knows Snoke speaks the terrible truth. Poe can’t speak at all. There is nothing to say. There is nothing he can anymore on this subject, nothing that will change the past.

He coughs. Poe closes his eyes, suddenly burning and teary and finds himself choking on smoke. He stumbles forward, hands grasping at the rough trunk of a tree. There’s a fierce heat at his back. Poe turns to look and horror sinks his heart. The corn-fields are aflame, lit with a burning white-hot fire spreading to every corner. The temple in the distance is a lick of red fire and grey smoke staining the sky. Smoke could not send a more obvious message.

\---don’t worry. you will never see him again. i will make sure of that, you ignorant child.

…

One moment he’s dreaming and the next he’s awake. It’s jarring, suddenly warm and heavy-limbed and blood running down his face. A hot liquid, fast, leaves stains everywhere. Nosebleed, he registers. The phrase rings true after all: blood is thicker than water, but Poe ain’t so sure he’d choose the covenant over his mother. He’s stumbling out of bed, grasping for a towel or something he can use to wash blood-stains out of later.

He gets himself to the bathroom quick as anything, still half-asleep. When he instinctively switches on the light, he stares dumbstruck at his reflection in the mirror. His head tilts up naturally to try to stop the blood trickling into his mouth. One terrible moment of dissonance passes.

Poe curses, head clicking in, grabs toilet roll paper and holds crumpled sheets to his nose while he bends over the sink, mouth spitting out blood. Is it tilt head back or tilt head forward? He can’t remember. It takes an unbearable long time but the blood clots, nosebleed drying up. Poe grabs a towel and dampens it with cold water, slaps it at the back of his neck the way his father used to do for him.

He looks at himself blearily in the mirror. Rust-red blood smears over his face turning brown, lips encrusted with dark red and little veins of bright red caught in-between his teeth. Blood tastes fucking awful in his mouth. He cleans his face carefully and then his hands. Nothing left but a ring of red around his nostril and a mild headache.

Poe stands there in the bathroom and looks at himself, so tired he wants to lean against the mirror and fall asleep. What’s he gonna do? He ain’t no Skywalker. Poe knows when to cut his losses and run. There’s an ache at the back of his mouth like thirst.

Poe has a future ahead of him and sometimes, you just have to live for yourself. So the next time he sees Kylo Ren, he’ll tell him, _I’m not gonna wait for you. You’re going to have to save yourself._

It doesn’t sound easy, but life never is.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Kill The Messenger by Jack's Mannequin. 
> 
> Fun fact: this whole fic started as a result of a dream my friend after liveblogging 'i see you, you see me, differently' at 2am. He dared me to write it into a fic and it became the opening scene, of walking into a darkening forest and finding 'our lord and saviour' Kylo Ren at the center. Then the night after I wrote the opening scene, I woke up at 4am with an entirely random nosebleed, after having a strange dream where Hobo and Glunkus were being creepy to me. Does that mean my theory is that Snoke is a pile of cats in a trenchcoat behind that hologram? Maybe. 
> 
> Anyway, my tumblr is silverhedges. So if you have any creepy dreams after reading my fics, please, let me know!


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